Meet Putin’s inner oligarch circle as US sanctions fly

The Biden administration has authorized further sanctions against Russia in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. 

The sanctions take aim at two of the Kremlin’s major state-owned banks that are critical to financing Russia’s defense industry. They also target financial elites close to Putin. 

The action, from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) builds on the president’s executive order imposing restrictions on economic activity in the so-called DNR and LNR regions of Ukraine.  

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The U.S. Treasury Department said these "elites" have leveraged their proximity to Putin to "pillage the Russian state, enrich themselves, and elevate their family members into some of the highest positions of power in the country at the expense of the Russian people." 

The sanctioned individuals, which now include Putin, have used family members to control their immense wealth, according to the Treasury Department. 

Who are the Russian oligarchs being sanctioned? 

Aleksandr Vasilievich Bortnikov

Aleksandr Vasilievich Bortnikov is the Director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), considered the country’s successor to the KGB, and is a permanent member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.  

He was previously designated in March 2021 for being a Russian government official and for working with the FSB.  

Denis Aleksandrovich Bortnikov

Aleksandr Bortnikov’s son, Denis Aleksandrovich Bortnikov, is currently a deputy president of the state-owned financial institution, VTB Bank Public Joint Stock Company (VTB Bank), and a chairman of the VTB Bank Management Board. 

He is also reported to have ties with other authoritarian regimes such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan. 

Petr Mikhailovich Fradkov 

Petr Mikhailovich Fradkov is the chairman and CEO of the Promsvyazbank Public Joint Stock Company (PSB), one of those banks targeted by U.S. sanctions. He is also the son of Mikhail Efimovich Fradkov, who is the former Russian Prime Minister and former director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) – Russia’s equivalent of the CIA.  

For the past several years, he has worked to transform PSB into a bank that services the defense industry and supports state defense contracts.

As chairman and CEO of PSB, Fradkov has had held working meetings with Putin and participated in roundtable discussions in international forums.

Fradkov is also the General Director of Joint Stock Company Russian Export, a subsidiary of the second financial institution targeted in U.S. sanctions: the State Corporation Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs Vnesheconombank (VEB). 

Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko

Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko is the former Prime Minister of Russia and served as the General Director of Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation. He had the distinction of being the youngest person to assume the post of Prime Minister of Russia at the age of 35. 

Kiriyenko is now the First Deputy Chief of Staff on the Presidential Office where he works closely with Putin as his domestic policy curator. 

Vladimir Sergeevich Kiriyenko

Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko’s son, Vladimir Sergeevich Kiriyenko, previously worked at the Russian-state controlled company Rostelecom, and is presently the CEO of VK Group, the parent company of Russia’s top social media platform, VKontakte. 

Kirill Dmitriev

The U.S. has also added Kirill Dmitriev, a key Putin ally as well as the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which he manages. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Putin and his "inner circle of cronies" have long relied on Dmitriev and the RDIF to raise funds abroad, including in the United States. 

Last Friday, the Biden administration expanded its original list of sanctioned oligarchs to include families close to Putin and financial sector elites. 

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FAMILIES CLOSE TO PUTIN:  

• Sergei Borisovich Ivanov is the Special Representative for Environmental Protection, Ecology, and Transport and a permanent member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. According to the U.S. Treasury Department is he one of Putin’s closet allies and previously served as the Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office, Deputy Prime Minister, and Defense Minister of Russia.
• Sergei Borisovich Ivanov’s son, Sergei Sergeevich Ivanov, is the current CEO of Russian state-owned diamond mining company Alrosa and a board member of Gazprombank.

• Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev is the Secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council and is reported to be a longtime close associate of Putin.
• Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev’s son, Andrey Patrushev, served in leadership roles at Gazprom Neft and is employed in Russia’s energy sector.
• Ivan Ivanovich Sechin is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chairman of the Management Board, and Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of Rosneft, which is one of the world’s largest publicly traded oil companies. Sechin was formerly the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation between 2008 and 2012 and is a close ally of Putin, according to the State Department.
• Ivan Ivanovich Sechin’s son, Ivan Igorevich Sechin, is reportedly head of a department at Rosneft.

FINANCIAL SECTOR ELITES: 

• Alexander Aleksandrovich Vedyakhin is First Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board of Sberbank.
• Andrey Sergeyevich Puchkov and Yuriy Alekseyevich Soloviev are two high-ranking VTB Bank Executives who work closely with VTB Bank chief executive Andrei Kostin, whom the OFAC sanctioned in 2018. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Puchkov has other business ventures beyond VTB, including Moscow-based real estate companies.
• Soloviev’s wife, Galina Olegovna Ulyutina, was previously implicated in a golden passport scheme – one in which wealthy individuals contribute to specific projects in foreign companies in exchange for citizenship.

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Putin deployed troops into two separatist regions of Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, located in the Eastern part of the country in an area named Donbas. The Russian president called the action a peacekeeping mission, and recognized the two regions as independent.

Following the invasion, Biden issued an executive order prohibiting Americans from doing business with Donetsk and Luhansk. The president has also allowed sanctions to move forward against the company that built the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and against the company's CEO.

The threat of war has shredded Ukraine's economy and raised the specter of massive casualties, energy shortages across Europe and global economic chaos. 

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Even as the conflict took a new, dangerous turn, leaders warned it could still get worse. Putin has yet to unleash the force of the 150,000 troops massed on three sides of Ukraine, while President Biden held back on even tougher sanctions that could cause economic turmoil for Russia but said they would go ahead if Putin's troops moved deeper into Ukraine.  

Fox Business Breck Dumas contributed to this report.